5th Edition
Muslims Their Religious Beliefs and Practices
Muslims: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices offers a survey of Islamic history and thought from the formative period of the religion to the contemporary period. It examines the unique elements which have combined to form Islam, in particular, the Qurʾān and perceptions of the Prophet Muḥammad, and traces the ways in which these ideas have interacted to influence Islam’s path to the present. Combining core source materials with coverage of current scholarship and of recent events in the Islamic world, Bernheimer and Rippin introduce this hugely significant religion, including alternative visions of Islam found in Shi’ism and Sufism, in a succinct, challenging, and refreshing way. The improved and expanded fifth edition is updated throughout and includes new textboxes.
With detailed illustrations and a new companion website, Muslims is the ideal introduction for students who wish to explore the key issues of Muslims, from the Qurʾān to Islamic feminism, to issues of identity, Islamophobia, and modern visions of Islam.
List of Illustrations
Preface to the fifth edition
Introduction
Part I: Formative elements of classical Islam
1 Prehistory
2 The Qurān
3 Muḥammad
Part II: Emergence of Islamic identity
4 Political action and theory
5 Theological exposition
6 Legal developments
7 Ritual practice
Part III: Alternative visions of classical Islamic identity
8 The Shī a
9 Ṣūfī devotion
Part IV: Consolidation of Islamic identity
10 Intellectual culture
11 Medieval visions of Islam
Part V: Modern visions of Islam
12 Describing modernity
13 Muḥammad and modernity
14 The Qurān and modernity
15 Issues of identity: ritual and politics
Part VI: Re-visioning Islam
16 Women, intellectuals, and other challenges
17 Perceptions of Muslims in the twenty-first century
Glossary
References
General index
Index of Qurʾān citations
Biography
Teresa Bernheimer is currently Gerda Henkel Fellow at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich, Germany, working on religious extremism in the early Islamic period.
Andrew Rippin was Professor of History and former Dean of the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Victoria, Canada, and among the foremost scholars of the Qurʾān.
"Muslims: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices provides an authoritative overview to both historical and contemporary issues when it comes to how Muslims have understood, interpreted and applied Islam. By its emphasis on complexity, source criticism and internal variations, the book provides a nuanced description that explains past and present developments, as well as dividing lines among Muslims. In this edition, Teresa Bernheimer has carefully revised and updated the late professor Andrew Rippin’s earlier editions. By addressing contemporary affairs and how Muslims are perceived in the twenty-first century, this book provides a user-friendly introduction to the study of Islam and its fascinating, but also very complex history."
Göran Larsson, University of Gothenburg, Sweden."This fifth edition of Muslims continues to stand out due to its comprehensive coverage, critical historical perspective and attention to the dynamics of religious identity construction. It is gratifying to see the author’s legacy continue. Just the right amount of challenge for undergraduate students."
F. Volker Greifenhagen, Luther College, University of Regina, Canada."This book remains a valuable and unmatched contribution to the field, with chapters that offer thematic, chronologically-based overviews of the key developments in the faith, scholarship, and practice of Islam. It offers highly readable prose and substantive, probing coverage of key issues from medieval to contemporary times. Undergraduates will find it challenging but eye opening, graduate students and the interested general reader will find it thought-provoking and insightful, and even experts in the field will find their knowledge enhanced and amplified. A tour de force."
Andrea L. Stanton, University of Denver, USA."This textbook, while academic, remains respectful in tone, yet thoughtful in the issues raised throughout. It seems that the primary pedagogical purpose of Muslims is not only to inform, but to stimulate critical and reflective thinking, not only on questions of approach and method, but also on issues that are alive and well—and also alive and dangerous—in the contemporary situation today."
Christopher Buck, Reading Religion.
